Fall 2024
Professor(s):
Bradley Areheart (VISITING)
Credits: 3
Course Areas: Employment and Labor Law
Business and Commercial Law
Time: 9:00a-10:30a MW Location:
Course Outline: Antidiscrimination law has expanded dramatically over the past several decades. There has been a push to expand beyond traditionally protected classes – e.g., race, sex, and religion – to protect people on the basis of a wide range of considerations, including (but not limited to) weight, criminal records, credit histories, sexual orientation, prior salaries, genetics, disability, and appearance. Further, some laws protect only some groups within a band of identity (e.g., the ADEA protects only workers over the age of 40 and the ADA protects only persons with disabilities) while some laws protect all persons on the basis of a particular trait (e.g., Title VII protects all people on the basis of race and sex). The push to expand discrimination law and the legislative choices made to protect some groups, but not others, leads to a fundamental and somewhat rudimentary set of questions: What is discrimination? When is it wrong? And should the law do anything about it?
This seminar will explore these questions and others. It will allow us to better understand why the law protects some people against some forms of discrimination – but not others. The first part of this seminar will approach discrimination law from a legal philosophy lens. We will consider hard questions, such as: What is discrimination? Why is it wrong? Is equality of opportunity possible? What is discrimination law? And what is the purpose of discrimination law? We will then move into more particular areas and queries. We will consider questions, such as: Is everyone biased? Can we do anything about it? What are the limits of discrimination law? Are there more creative approaches to achieving equality? And what are the next frontiers for discrimination law? The readings and discussions, taken together, will provide you with a foundation on which to build and revise your paper, which should fit generally within the ambit of antidiscrimination law or theory. This seminar is intended to provoke you to think long and deeply about the project of antidiscrimination.
Course Syllabus: Syllabus
Course Notes: (Synchronous Online) The UH registration system instruction mode for this course is listed in parenthesis. Contrary to the UH information, some student materials may not be available online, such as an assigned casebook. A physical classroom may be assigned for this course to give students a location in the Law Center to join the virtual class sessions. If the course has a final examination, the final and any other assessment for the course, such as a mid-term exam, will be conducted without the need to physically come to the Law Center, such as, for example, via the EBB portal as a take home exam or under remote proctoring.
Quota=12
For more information about Professor Areheart please see:
https://law.utk.edu/directory/brad-areheart/
Prerequisites:
First Day Assignments:
Final Exam Schedule:
This course will have:
Exam:
Paper:
Satisfies Senior Upper Level Writing Requirement: Yes
Experiential Course Type: No
Bar Course: No
DistanceEd ABA: Yes
Pass-Fail Student Election: Unavailable (Instructor Preference)
Course Materials
No book required for this course
There is nothing for you to purchase. I have assembled the assigned readings for class and will post
all of them to Canvas.
